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Early life
The second of nine children, Kennedy was reared in a family that demanded intense physical and intellectual competition among the siblings (the family's touch football games at their Hyannis Port retreat later became legendary)and was schooled in the religious teachings of the Roman Catholic church and the political precepts of the Democratic Party. His father, Joseph Patrick Kennedy , had acquired a multimillion-dollar fortune in banking, bootlegging, shipbuilding, and the film industry, and as a skilled player of the stock market. His mother, Rose, was the daughter of John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, onetime mayor of Boston. They established trust funds for their children that guaranteed lifelong financial independence. After serving as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Joseph Kennedy became the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and for six months in 1938 John served as his secretary, drawing on that experience to write his senior thesis at Harvard University (B.S., 1940) on Great Britain's military unpreparedness. He then expanded that thesis into a best-selling book, Why England Slept (1940).
The second of nine children, Kennedy was reared in a family that demanded intense physical and intellectual competition among the siblings (the family's touch football games at their Hyannis Port retreat later became legendary)and was schooled in the religious teachings of the Roman Catholic church and the political precepts of the Democratic Party. His father, Joseph Patrick Kennedy , had acquired a multimillion-dollar fortune in banking, bootlegging, shipbuilding, and the film industry, and as a skilled player of the stock market. His mother, Rose, was the daughter of John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, onetime mayor of Boston. They established trust funds for their children that guaranteed lifelong financial independence. After serving as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Joseph Kennedy became the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and for six months in 1938 John served as his secretary, drawing on that experience to write his senior thesis at Harvard University (B.S., 1940) on Great Britain's military unpreparedness. He then expanded that thesis into a best-selling book, Why England Slept (1940).
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Sharani Robins